Devoted to online marketing, viral marketing, and web marketing

With people starting to be concerned about internet advertising and young people there has been a study done to acquire information on how the food companies are marketing their products to children. The study which is called “It’s Child’s Play: Advergaming and the Online Marketing of Food to Children,” offers extensive insight into how the companies do it.

Whether or not this is a good or bad thing as far as obesity and children goes is up to others to prove. Nonetheless, if you're products or services are for children, the study gives a treasure-trove of insight into what the strategies used by the companies are.

Here are a few of the results of the study:

• Almost 40 percent have incentives for children to purchase food so they can collect brand points or stamps that can be exchanged for premiums such as access to new online games or the purchase of brand-related clothing.

• About half of the sites provided nutritional information such as that found on product labels, and 44 percent included a nutritional claim such as “good source of vitamins and minerals.”

• More than three-quarters of the sites offer at least one extra brand-related option such as screensavers or wallpaper for a child’s computer, printable coloring pages, branded CD covers, or brand logos or characters that can “live” on a child’s computer.

• Thirty-five percent provided educational content, such as facts about dinosaurs, astronomy and geography.

• About three-quarters of the websites in the study included advergames, ranging from one to more than 60 games per site.

• Almost two-thirds of sites in the study use viral marketing, in which children are encouraged to send emails to their friends about a product, or invite them to visit the company’s website.

• One in four sites offer a “membership” opportunity for children age 12 or younger.

Remember when marketing to children you must maintain adherence to Children’s Advertising Review Unit’s (CARU) guidelines. One of those guidelines is that “advertising content should be clearly identified as such” on  websites promoting products.